Off By One

So, I just attended my first-ever keynote presentations, yesterday and this morning.  I can already see that there’s a lot of variation in delivery styles and value of content.  Yesterday had Joel Spolsky going over the importance of glitz in software development.  This is something I personally see a use for, but will admittedly be of limited use to my workplace software development, given that we develop the buried backend that makes the pretty output, not the output itself.

Today I was treated to what was, by and large, a discussion on the Apache project and differences in licensing models.  The former was a bit interesting — I didn’t know Apache had a database — but the latter was, at best, dull.  Licensing is interesting, don’t get me wrong, but I already know the basics of it, and it borders on religious for most people — they’re not going to change preferences based on a keynote.

An aside:  For the record, “LAN spigot” is the stupidest name for an RJ-45 outlet I’ve heard in ages (overheard just to my right, moments ago).

Well, the presentation I’m attending is about to start, so I should probably pay attention.  Later…

Yeah, I’m a bit poor at the posting, lately.

Mind you, I’ve got nothing on one of my site’s tenants when it comes to letting cobwebs collect. It’s too bad, too, because he’s a good writer. Char and I spent a late night there the other day, and had a blast. As expected, of course. I’m concerned that they may not feel the same, though, because I have an uncanny knack for finding (not causing, I hope!) flaws in any electronic device that I go near :). Their coffee maker spat up, and the next day their gamecube wasn’t playing nice with their VCR. I swear it’s not my fault, but the correlation between my presence and these issues is a bit disturbing.

Anyway, I’m just ticking along, here. I tinkered with the blog layout again. I decided to try something I ordinarily find to be a bit hard on the eyes — the black background + white lettering scheme — and get REALLY geeky. Isn’t that a slick death star? Other than work, I do little. I’m still poking at the programming environment of OS X, looking for a way to make my iTunes reconciler work. I imagine that once I get through the “how the hell do the GUI programming tools work?” steps, I should be cackling.

I’m getting a bit fed up with all of the people who don’t understand the concept of freedom of speech.

Yes, it’s going to be one of those posts.

There’s a couple of interesting incidents out in the wilds (I hesitate to say “hinterlands”, but mainly because I don’t think that way of Austria, and I don’t want to lump them in with the rest of the places at issue) of the world. You may have heard of them. There’s the (by now) infamous incident with the Danish editorial cartoons causing riots and bloodshed… Oh, sorry, no. Just to be clear, that bloodshed? Those riots? The threats? Those are the works of madmen, not cartoonists. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to differentiate the two.

Anyway… Back on track… There’s the cartoons, and then there’s this twit over in Austria, deliberately flouting their laws against Holocaust denial to promulgate bald-faced lies about the occurrence of the Nazi extermination of some large number of Jews.

So… What’s the most common refrain? Well, on one hand we have people who are all for freedom of speech, and then on the other hand we have people who are all for freedom of speech.

What the fuck, you ask?

Well, see, that last group “believe in free speech, but…”

Beware of anyone who prefaces a statement with that line. They probably don’t have your best interests at heart, and they’re a liar, to boot.

Here’s the skinny, and I know that this comes as no news to most of those that read here, but nonetheless: Free Speech means (and, in fact, rests firmly upon and is rendered meaningless without) the right to say things that terrify, disgust, demean, insult, and verbally violate all that you hold dear. The more offensive an utterance is, the more important it is that the speaker be free to say it, without fear of violence or of censorship. That isn’t to say that they should be immune to censure — that’s how mind-blowingly stupid pronouncements like “Auschwitz’s Crematorium Two, the site of half a million deaths, is ‘a mere legend’” should be greeted. Ridicule is another good response. As is simply ignoring the speaker. But silencing your critics is… well, there’s a couple of interesting 20^th century events that might be informative on the subject. I leave that, too, as an exercise for the reader.

In short, freedom of speech is not just freedom to agree with the people who have more guns.

Interesting…

Char and I, sitting in our apartment, noticed a strange siren from outside the door. Turns out our building isn’t really all that well-equipped with loud fire alarms. Not that I mind; I’d notice them. Char, however, would not, if she were sleeping…

But I digress.

So, one of the 19th-floor penthouse suites was aflame in a serious way. Fire licking at the roof, smoke sheeting out. I wish I had a camera. Or, for that matter, apartment insurance.

I’m pretty pleased with the fire department — less than one hour from alarm to all clear.

Nifty stuff, this whole “Fire” thing.

Updates inside… (continue reading…)

I want to second Char’s mention of the Green Party of Canada’s petition to be included in national debates. Political discourse in this country needs to include all of the parties that are in the running, even if they are just nascent entities on the political stage.

How are voters supposed to make informed choices, if all of the reasonable alternatives — plus the NDP — aren’t allowed to present their platforms?

The Green Party is the first party I’ve seen that has ever given me reason to re-examine my fairly hard-line conservative bent. They’re basically the other side of the coin, for me; where the Conservative party satisfies my sense of fiscal and civil responsibility, the Green Party emphasizes a fair number of intellectual property and personal freedom policies that I support, as well. It makes it a hard choice, and even more so because I live in one of the two ridings in Alberta that elects a Liberal, which brings my own personal distaste for strategic voting to the fore.

Let’s just say I’m not 100% certain to vote Conservative this time around.

It’s been a bit since my last update, much to my chagrin. Sorry, folks, I’ll try to keep on the ball.

So, here’s the rundown:

I went skydiving last weekend, did another AFF(Advanced Free Fall) training jump, this one having to do with making myself fall faster and move forward. It was amazing. As always. A couple of fellow geeks came out too, and a good time was had by all.

I got all of my marks back. I was leery of posting these, because in one case I’m not too proud of it. However, here they are:

• Cmput 391: B (This is the lowest mark I’ve ever gotten in a CS course, and the one of which I am un-proud)
• Cmput 325: B+ (This is the second-lowest. Not too happy about it, either)
• Cmput 301: A+ (This one really doesn’t surprise me all that much. I kicked that course’s ass. It was fun, too. 96% overall mark)
• Cmput 340: A

That last one doesn’t seem like it belongs in that order, does it? Except when you take into account the nature of the course. Cmput340 is a numerical methods course. It’s probably one of the harder courses, in terms of theory and understanding, that I’ve ever taken. The class average for the course was 67.3%, just to give you an idea. My mark, however, was 87.6%. I couldn’t possibly be more proud. The course was hard, required a lot of work, and taught me a lot. And I kicked its ass. It’s one of the marks of which I am most proud, right alongside the Cmput366 mark from last semester, which was just as surprisingly high.

Work is going well. I’m actively contributing to the big project we’re working on, putting together snippets of code for a tools library. It’s satisfying, sometimes. Other times it feels like I know Nothing At All about the job, and am going to demonstrate my incompetence in some hyperdramatic fashion. Still, it’s mostly good.

Char is a sweetie.

How do you all like this look for the site? After Char commented about some difficulties commenting with the pinup layout, I moved over to this. I like it decently, although I can think of a few tweaks I’d like to make. Maybe later…

Also, re: politics: Fuck ‘em. Let’s nuke ‘em from orbit; it’s the only way to be sure.

As a few of you already know, a reasonably serious non-confidence motion was brought forward and passed in our parliament yesterday. Unsurprisingly, given the high-handed arrogance with which they have governed, the liberal party declined to accept the ruling.

What’s interesting to me — what with all the problems I’ve had with media spin on this — is the coverage. Conveniently enough, another blogger (who is more conservative than I — note the grade given the Nat’l post, which would have gotten a B in my world) has rounded up and graded most national news outlets on the subject. Check those out here.

This jives well with what I’ve been saying about spin on the nature of the upcoming confidence votes. There’s little doubt in my mind that, when the early election is forced, the Liberal party will manage to spin it as being forced by the Conservatives, as opposed to having been brought about by a combination of increasing evidence of corruption and deliberate alterations to the budget into one that neither the PC party nor the Bloc can legitimately accept. Since, given that budget, the Liberals can only be assured of the NDP + Liberal vote, which is three short of a tie in the house of commons, they know they cannot win that budget vote. There never was a way for them to do so. Therefore, they just forced the PC party to appear to be the instigators of the election. I guarantee that a paraphrase of “Harper knew that Canadians didn’t want an election this soon” (Right after they trot out the “Hidden Agenda” tripe they used to such good effect last election, despite all and any evidence to the contrary. Or more accurately, lack of evidence.) will appear on the campaign trail, and it’ll be true — but neither did Harper. And I wish that people reading the news would have a chance to realize that. But I invite you all to read more closely. It’s worth paying attention to the biases in order to find the truth.

I’m starting to have a bit more time to myself now. I’m putting the finishing touches on a project this weekend that has been… frustrating, for a variety of reasons. And then one more assignment, four final exams, four days off, and to work!

Sounds packed, but really other than the finals it’ll be a cakewalk.

I’d talk about my activities, but I do realize that most peoples’ eyes glaze over when I try to describe what I do. So I’ll spare you all.

Instead, let’s talk politics!

So, how many of you readers of mine voted Liberal?

It’s been an exciting few days for those of us that felt that our Liberal overlords had perhaps overstepped their bounds last time Canadians elected them. I know I was blown away by it — I still don’t understand how so many people could have been so well fooled by a few random rumblings about one province’s healthcare plans as to vote for a party that is (and I quote a local Liberal MP) “acting like banana republic.”

For those of you that don’t follow this sort of thing with the degree of interest that I do, here’s a few especially pertinent links:

• Brault alleged donations to Liberals linked to sponsorship work
• Ban partly lifted, sponsorship details revealed
• Jean Brault’s Testimony
• Federal Sponsorship Scandal

Note that most of the above links are to the CBC(Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) with whom I am frequently displeased. They are doing a phenonmenal job — at least online, since I don’t watch the TV news — of covering this, so kudos to them.

Other links in the roundup:

• Conservatives rally the troops
• English Canadians dial in their anger over allegations (I’d like to see the reaction of french canadians, too, since this did happen in Quebec)
• Cash Opened Doors
• Ban on volatile testimony largely lifted
• A Blog Written From Minneapolis Rattles Canada’s Liberal Party (registration required)
• Poll finds public support for Liberals slipping
• Ex-PM’s staff took payoffs

Take some time. This is our elected government here.

Ours is but to question why.

A list of things that aren’t really well-explained, at least by reputable, peer-reviewed science. I’ll leave aside the issue of crackpot theorists whose entire contribution to the scientific method is to serve as an example to others.

Good read, here. Especially interesting (to me) since the announcement of the artificial creation of a black hole. If you’re more interested in this than I am, you may want to check out the actual results (Simon?) and draw some of your own conclusions.

Apparently, although this is news to me, March 15th has become the “International Eat an Animal for PETA” day. (Via Instapundit)

It doesn’t have the same linguistic flair that, say, Talk Like a Pirate day does, but it’s still something that I’ll approve of. Apparently, joined by many others, although most of them have left the blogging thing — or at least re-done their links — since they participated, so no links.

I guess this stems from an ad campaign that PETA used a year or so ago associating animal slaughterhouses with the holocaust, which is pretty nasty even to my jaded eyes. So, eat some meat for PETA on the 15th! Hell, why not start today?